Wolff apartments earn LEED platinum rating

The Wolff Co. said its recently completed Sunset Electric apartment building on Capitol Hill was awarded a LEED platinum rating by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The site address is 1111 E. Pine St.

The seven-story, 92-unit building includes a 5,800-square-foot ground-floor restaurant space and underground parking for 33 vehicles.

It was one of the first projects to participate in the city's Pike-Pine character structure overlay program, which allows taller building heights in exchange for preserving character facades of buildings more than 75 years old.

The design preserves the two-level brick facade of the original 1926 auto-row building.

Weber Thompson designed the building, landscape and interiors.

Patrinely Group was the construction manager, and Compass General Construction was the general contractor. Other project team members were DCI Engineers; Ecotope; Bush, Roed & Hitchings, BEE Consulting; Transportation Solutions; SSA Acoustics; and O'Brien & Co.

Sunset Electric was designed around an open-air courtyard, enabling the building to be constructed without interior corridors and common areas that require heating and cooling.

Residential units have operable windows on both sides to allow efficient through-ventilation and natural cooling. Timbers from the original structure were preserved and refashioned into sliding barn-style bedroom doors.

The residential lobby is on the courtyard's lowest level. Access to the apartments is through a series of bridges and balconies that are common in contemporary European designs, according to the developer.

The building also uses a reverse-cycle chiller system, which is a water-heating system that works with the garage exhaust ventilation by transferring heat from the air in the garage to the domestic hot-water supply. Efficiencies in the hot-water supply and the elimination of conditioned space are expected to reduce the building's energy demands by 50 percent.

A green roof and patio area offer views of Cal Anderson Park and the surrounding neighborhood.

Wolff is a private equity firm based in Scottsdale, Arizona, that buys and builds apartments.